Tolkien's round world dilemma

Rare card · No. 53939

J. R. R. Tolkien came to feel that the flat earth cosmology he embodied in his legendarium would be unacceptable to a modern readership. In The Silmarillion, Earth was created flat and was changed to round as a cataclysmic event during the Second Age in order to prevent direct access by Men to Valinor, home of the immortals. In the Round World Version, Earth is spherical from the beginning. Tolkien abandoned the Round World Version before completing The Lord of the Rings, but later regretted this decision. He created a Round World Version, "The Drowning of Anadûnê", of the Akallabêth, the central story of the submerging of Númenor. He felt unable to proceed with it because the Flat World version was so deeply embedded in his mythology, with vitally important symbols like the Two Trees of Valinor which were difficult to fit in a Round World Version. He never resolved the dilemma, continuing to redraft his published works to make them compatible with a round world version for most of the...

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